n the ranks against
Spartacus (72 B.C.), he became a military tribune (67), and served a
campaign in Macedonia, but he never had any enthusiasm for the military
profession. On his return he became quaestor, and showed so much zeal
and integrity in the management of the public accounts that he obtained
a provincial appointment in Asia, where he strengthened his reputation.
Though filled with disgust at the corruption of the public men with whom
he came in contact, he saw much to admire in the discipline which
Lucullus had enforced in his own eastern command, and he supported his
claims to a triumph, while he opposed the inordinate pretensions of
Pompey. When the favour of the nobles gained him the tribuneship, he
exerted himself unsuccessfully to convict L. Licinius Murena (2), one of
their chief men, of bribery. Cicero, who defended Murena, was glad to
have Cato's aid when he urged the execution of the Catilinarian
conspirators. Cato's vote on this matter drew upon him the bitter
resentment of Julius Caesar, who did his utmost to save them.

Cato had now become a great power in the state. Though possessed of
little wealth and no family influence, his unflinching resolution in the
cause of the ancient free state rendered him a valuable instrument in
the hands of the nobles. He vainly opposed Caesar's candidature for the
consulship in 59, and his attempt, in conjunction with Bibulus, to
prevent the passing of Caesar's proposed agrarian law for distributing
lands amongst the Asiatic veterans, proved unsuccessful. Nevertheless,
although his efforts were ineffectual, he was still an obstacle of
sufficient importance for the triumvirs to desire to get rid of him. At
the instigation of Caesar he was sent to Cyprus (58) with a mission to
depose its king, Ptolemy (brother of Ptolemy Auletes), and annex the
island. On his return two years later he continued to struggle against
the combined powers of the triumvirs in the city, and became involved in
scenes of violence and riot. He succeeded in obtaining the praetorship
in 54, and strenuously exerted himself in the hopeless and thankless
task of suppressing bribery, in which all parties were equally
interested. He failed to attain the consulship, and had made up his mind
to retire from the arena of civic ambition when the civil war broke out
in 49. Feeling that the sole chance for the free state lay in conceding
an actual supremacy to Pompey, whom he had formerly vigorously opposed,